Heart to Hearts Require Talking
by LadiesMile
Summary: When she returns to DC from Hong Kong, Annie is overwhelmed not by depression or guilt or exhaustion but by indecision. In "Heart to Hearts Require Talking," she shares her thoughts and feelings with some of the people who have been through the last four years with her, and for once she actually listens to what they have to say.
1. Nothing Indecisive About Joan

**A/N: Covert Affairs **is the property of USA Networks. I don't own any of the characters in this story except Clara Weinberg. 

**Chapter 1: Nothing Indecisive about Joan**

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Right after she gave birth to Mackenzie, Joan mused about taking a longish maternity leave, reveling in the peace that she and Arthur had finally achieved in their marriage, and then maybe going back to a less stressful position in the company – one that would be 9-to-5 and leave her some time and energy for Mac and Arthur.

That fantasy lasted about a week, and then the real Joan emerged from the maternal cocoon. After three weeks, she told the Director of National Intelligence that she wanted her old job back. After six weeks, she was back at Langley as Director of Clandestine Services. Calder was still Head of the Domestic-Protection Department, and he and Joan were happy to be working together for real. Auggie was back in Jai's old job, Head of Special Projects, but he wasn't loving it; Joan knew she'd have to find a way to make him happy, but she hadn't yet been able to focus on doing so. Too many landmines all over the building (hell, all over the world) were waiting to explode in her face.

Today, the main item on her agenda was a frank talk with Annie. No doubt this would be a painful conversation, but it was one they needed to have before the young operative could go back into the field.

Joan's secretary Olivia knocked, and Joan quickly told her to come in. Olivia entered with Annie, and Joan's head was immediately in the game – 100%. "Annie," she said, "it's great to see you in the office." Mac had been just three days old when Annie first returned from Hong Kong. It was Joan's first day home from the hospital, and she had had to leave the managerial duties surrounding Annie's resurrection and debriefing to Calder. She had met Annie for coffee as soon as she was fully back on her feet, but that had – appropriately – been a purely social event. This was their first professional interaction and their first meeting at Langley.

"It's good to see you, too, Joan," Annie said. "Congratulations on the DCS job. Again."

"Yeah, well, thank you. Again. Oddly enough, I think I'm better prepared now."

Annie shifted in her chair and crossed her legs. She'd been waiting for Joan to drop a bombshell ever since Olivia had called to make the appointment. She was still waiting.

"How are you getting on?," Joan asked. "As DCS, I get regular reports from Medical on everyone in the division. Only the high-level picture; they're careful about respecting people's privacy to the extent possible. I'm told that you're well physically and that you're seeing the psychiatrist every week, still trying to decide whether and when to go back into the field."

"That's about right," Annie said. "I actually can't imagine what I would do around here if I didn't go back into the field, but I'm not ready to go back yet."

Joan leans forward, puts both hands on her desk, and looks at Annie in her best ice-queen fashion. "You're a very talented field operative, Annie, but remember that you were hired for your language skills and cultural knowledge. There's an enormous amount that you could do to serve your country even if you never spent another day in the field."

("Here it comes," Annie thought. "Nice whitewashed version of why I was hired. I guess they've deleted Ben from the official history of the Clandestine-Services Division.")

Annie didn't say anything, however, and Joan continued after a brief pause. "But, no matter what type of work you decide to do, Annie, I won't have you doing it behind my back."

Not exactly a shock. Joan wants all of "her people" to do things by the book – unless Joan tells them to ignore the book. Annie figures she'd better take the bait. "What exactly do you mean, Joan? What did I do wrong?"

"Taking down Henry was a big win, Annie. You were incredibly brave to go after him. But there was an enormous amount of collateral damage that might not have been necessary. You should have come to me – the head of your department – as soon as Henry approached you."

Collateral damage: Teo's death – and Helen's. In Annie's brain, there was a ping-pong match between the urge to lash out at Joan for censuring her and the urge to howl with grief at the violent death of her fellow operatives. The old Annie would simply have stormed out of Joan's office. The new one just sat and listened, overwhelmed by the grim truth that she didn't know where to go or what to do next.

"Does Arthur blame me for Teo's death?," she asked quietly.

"No, Annie, of course not. It's not that simple. Arthur knows that better than any of us. We can't know exactly what would have happened if you hadn't thrown yourself into a deadly, unsanctioned mission."

Maybe play the Auggie card? He's Joan's pet student. "I was on the verge of blowing Henry off that first night, you know. But he made it clear that Auggie had been involved in whatever off-book op Arthur was running in Colombia. I had to protect Auggie."

Joan sat perfectly still, looking sad, stern, and confident. "No, you didn't. Auggie is a cherished member of this division, Annie, and he has been for more years than you have. He's not a child, and it's not your job to `protect' him. Had you come to me as soon as Henry approached you, we could have devised a plan of action that drew on _all_ of the expertise in the division, _including Auggie's_. The CIA has protocols and chains of command for a reason, Annie. You can't disregard them with impunity, even when your `gut' tells you that you're right. Even when you _are_ right."

Well! Joan had really zeroed in on the pickle they were both in, and Annie had to hand it to her. "Gut calls" could be right, they could be wrong, or they could be the beginnings of long ordeals with mixed-bag outcomes and tons of collateral damage. Annie accepted that and wanted to go with her gut. But Joan wanted to be able to say she'd been "following protocol" when things went wrong.

"You can't be a lone wolf if you're going to work for me, Annie. You have to understand that you're part of an organization. When you take unjustified risks, you don't just risk yourself and your mission – you risk the safety and effectiveness of other people in Clandestine Services and of their missions as well. Some of those are missions that you're not cleared to know about and that might be more important than yours."

Joan yearned to add "and, if you stay with Auggie, you're part of a couple as well as an organization. You can't just jump into the breach and ignore the effect of your actions on him." But she didn't say it, and her face gave no hint that she thought it. She was not about to preach self-control and professionalism but not practice them.

They sat in awkward silence for a few moments. Annie uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "Where does that leave us?," she asked.

"I don't want to rush you into a decision about the next phase of your career. Take all the time you need, and think seriously about what I've said." Joan said, clearly wanting to wrap things up. "In the meantime, I'd like to give you an assignment that won't have you out in the field but that's extremely important to the company," she said. "Frankly, it's important to the whole world at this time."

Annie was intrigued and wanted to hear more. She looked across the desk at Joan, wishing that she could speak volumes with her eyebrows the way Joan could. "What do you want me to do?," she asked.

"Review the CIA's entire Ukrainian portfolio. Things are changing over there. We still have some people on the ground – not nearly as many as we did during the Cold War but enough to provide valuable intel if we use them right. Some of them have been working Ukrainian-speaking assets, others Russian-speaking assets. Some of our people may be doubles, working part-time for us and part-time for FSB. Whom can we count on if Yanukovic is forced out?"

"OK," Annie said. She was actually pretty jazzed about the prospect of using her Russian without having to shoot anyone or risk being shot. But she gave Joan just a flat "OK."

"Good," Joan said. "You'll be working with Clara Weinberg, an east-Slavic language expert who's been seriously underutilized since the end of the Cold War. Olivia will take you down to the space you and Clara will be sharing. Olivia?"

Olivia appeared with some manila folders and smiled at Annie. "Whenever you're ready, Ms. Walker."

"Now," Annie said. "I'm ready now. Bye, Joan."

"Goodbye, Annie. I think you'll like working with Clara."

TBC

4

4


	2. Fight, but Don't Run

**A/N:** I am very grateful to bridgestocross for her encouragement and for some good suggestions.

**#**

**Chapter 2: Fight, but Don't Run**

Thursday, January 16, 2014

In no mood for company after that unexpected lecture from Joan, Annie had spent Wednesday evening cleaning and unpacking in her new apartment. Was she really going to go back to wearing $800 stilettos every day? Maybe she would stick to the heavy-soled boots that had served Jessica Matthews so well in Geneva, sell all of her Louboutins, and use the proceeds to buy a functional, nondescript, used car. Yuck. Why bring Operative Walker back from the dead if no one was going to notice?

She went to Auggie's place after work the next day but soon wondered whether that had been a mistake. It wasn't one of those days on which they pulled each other's clothes off as soon as they were alone together, but nor was it one on which they just sat around amicably – cooking dinner, drinking beer, listening to Mingus, feeling almost as if they'd returned to the friendship that had worked so well for three years. They had had both kinds of days since returning from Hong Kong, but today they were tense, unable to finish a conversation, unable even to decide whether to order a pizza. She complained about the way Joan had treated her the previous day.

"Of course, she didn't say it in so many words, but she made it sound like she thinks I'm a teenager who needs to grow up. Or that she thinks I'm in the wrong job. I don't know. She sure didn't sound very happy about the way I dealt with Henry."

Auggie sat silently on a barstool at the kitchen counter. The counter was big enough to seat four people on barstools and had a beautiful butcher-block top that he used for both cutting and eating. He'd been drumming his fingers on it nervously while she was talking about the conversation with Joan. She expected him to say something in response but heard only the fingers on the butcher block.

"What?," she asked.

"Nothing. I don't know what Joan thinks. She hasn't said much to me since she got back into the DCS chair."

"What do _you_ think about what she said to me?"

"I don't know, Annie," he said softly and reluctantly, "maybe you are in the wrong job. Maybe you're too emotional in the way you think about work. Maybe you were too emotional in your pursuit of Henry. Maybe next time those emotions will get you killed."

"Too _emotional_?"

She shot off the couch as she said it, walking toward the counter at which he sat, stopping a few paces away from him. "I was ruthless. Unstoppable. Predatory. Of course _emotions_ were part of it. Emotions are always part of field work. Even _Joan_ says that, and she's the least `emotional' person I've ever met."

She'd never talked to him that way before: angry, insulted, contemptuous. It scared the shit out of him.

"Annie, I …"

"You _what_?," she shouted. "Want to be in control all the time? Yeah, I noticed."

He broke into a cold sweat when he heard footsteps along with the yelling, but he forced himself to remain seated quietly on the barstool. The emotions that had raged in her since Copenhagen and boiled over periodically weren't going to dissipate any time soon – especially when he didn't take care to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear. Could she express them but not run away? Could they fight and make up and stay together to fight another day?

He heard a door closing, but it was the bathroom door, not the front door. Good sign. He steadied himself with a few more deep breaths, then got up and opened the refrigerator. He was going to have to eat dinner tonight, even if she refused to join him; so he'd better start cooking.

###

She soaked in the tub until long after the water had cooled, finally getting back to the kitchen just as he was finishing clearing up. She pulled a bowl of leftover spaghetti out of the fridge and started eating it cold, one strand at a time with her fingers.

"Joan's right about me."

"How so?," he asked. He didn't have a clue where she was going with this but really wanted to hear it.

"I'm not a team player. I'm someone who can get results in the kind of sick situations that the company gets us into, but she wants someone who can work in a team that gets those results. That's what she is."

She thought "and that's what you are, too, Augs" but didn't say it. Did he know that that's what she was thinking? Did he know she was eating cold spaghetti with her fingers?

"I can't help you with that, Annie. Every boss wants team players," he said. "You're not going to find a job in which you can be a kick-ass field operative but not have a boss."

"Yeah, it makes sense when you put it that way. I really don't know what I should do."

Eventually, they went to bed early but could neither make love nor fall asleep. They tossed and turned and periodically exchanged a few words. "So Joan is the least emotional person you've ever met?," he asked, venturing into a real conversation once it was clear that neither of them was about to doze off.

"Hmm. She sure as hell _shows_ less emotion than anyone else I've met. Who knows what she actually feels?"

He smiled at the ceiling. Annie's empathy and people skills had helped make her a great field operative and had saved her ass many times. But she still didn't "get" Joan – the woman who'd done so much for him over the years and without whom he'd have left the company after he was blinded in Iraq.

"I guess you don't become the head of a spy organization by telling people exactly how you feel," he said in defense of his mentor.

"Well, with all the talking going on around here lately, I guess neither of us is ever going to be DCS."

How many years had he daydreamed about someday being DCS? At the moment, all that ambition felt like ancient history, and he wasn't thrown by her casual dismissal of his chances.

"Once upon a time, I thought I was being groomed for the DCS job," he said, still facing the ceiling. "But would _you_ even consider it? I mean, even if you could be your real `emotional' self and not just a younger version of Joan, would you be willing to sit at your desk all day?"

She rolled onto her left side to face him and raised her eyebrows.

"I have a desk?"

They laughed for the first time since they'd fought earlier that day. Still, they couldn't sleep and couldn't get comfortable in each other's arms. They lay on their backs, occasionally talking for a minute or two but mostly waiting quietly for sleep. Just before 2 AM, she heard him snoring and thought "great! Now I'll never fall asleep."

He usually woke up if he felt her get out of bed. So she stayed there, rolled back onto her left side, and looked him over. No getting around it: Even snoring, unshaven, and wearing old pajamas, Auggie looked pretty good. This was so much better than all of those nights in Geneva, when she'd been sleepless and alone.

TBC

4


	3. Literally Looking at Her

**Chapter 3: Literally Looking at Her**

Saturday, January 18, 2014, 9 a.m.

Annie parked near an entrance to the Western Ridge Trail in Rock Creek Park. The day was perfect for an 8-mile loop hike – crisp and sunny enough for her to walk unimpeded by weather or trail conditions but cold enough to discourage most recreational hikers. An entire day of quiet, solitude, cold, and exercise might help her figure out what she wanted from the job and what she wanted from Auggie – or at least be an opportunity to clear her head and stop worrying about both.

She walked in silence for about ten minutes and then heard footsteps. They grew louder as whoever was walking behind her pulled up next to her. She was about to say something to the person about their being the only two people willing to brave the cold, but she stopped and turned abruptly when she heard a familiar voice say "Hello, Annie."

"Ben! What are you doing in DC?"

"It was time to check in with Arthur."

"Arthur?! He resigned months ago. What do you have to talk about with Arthur?"

Ben smiled, leaned his head in the direction they had been going, and resumed walking; Annie followed suit. "I don't see Arthur's devoting the rest of his life to housework and child care. He's going to need people like me in whatever he does next."

"People like you?"

"People like us, Annie," he said in a tone of voice he'd never used with her before. No flirting, no pleading, no regret – no emotional current coursing through the conversation. He was talking to her as a fellow operative – as a professional peer who had done something difficult and excellent. "I heard what went down in Hong Kong. Not many people could have done what you did."

Empathy: It's what had been missing from every conversation she'd had about her twilight struggle with Henry. Ben _understood_ what she'd done and why she'd felt she had no choice but to do it. He knew firsthand what it was like to flush agency protocol down the toilet – to plunge headlong into an unsanctioned, dangerous, solo mission. That kind of mission had become his life.

"How much of the story have you heard?," she asked.

"Basically just the mission-accomplished part," he said. "I'd love to get the full debrief."

For the next half hour, they walked under a beautiful tree canopy, pierced occasionally by intense winter sunlight, and she gave him a blow-by-blow account – from the meeting at the Vesta diner to the fatal shot in the alley in Hong Kong. He listened with rapt attention, hardly saying anything. She felt perfectly in synch with him, especially when she got to the part of the story she was least proud of – the death of Teo. She asked him whether she'd made a mistake by interfering with Teo's plan to kill Henry, but Ben dismissed that. "It was Teo's mistake to make, Annie, and he made it. If his goal was to kill Henry, he was an idiot to give you or anyone else a chance to interfere."

Ben didn't seem surprised to learn that Helen had not really died in Rome in 2006. But he didn't act like he thought Auggie had been a chump. Actually, he laughed admiringly when she told him how Auggie had steered Henry into her sights by causing a traffic jam. The end of the story was a bit anticlimactic, because it was the only part that Ben already knew. They walked in silence for a minute or two.

"So, anything you would have done differently?," she couldn't help asking.

"Yeah," he answered. "I would have strangled Henry in the parking lot of the Vesta."

She knew he was probably serious but laughed nervously anyway. Is that what she would do next time? Would there be a next time?

A few more minutes passed before she ventured further out on the limb.

"Auggie doesn't get why I did it," she said. "He doesn't approve."

She hadn't really expected a multisyllabic response, but Ben didn't miss a beat. "Auggie is a company man, Annie. And he's a soldier. He takes orders; he gives orders; he knows his place in the chain of command. He's not just playing the game to win; he's playing for the team. You can hear it in his voice when he talks about 'my people' and 'my men.' "

"Yeah, I know what you mean," she said. "I couldn't say that kind of thing with a straight face."

"You're ahead of me, babe. I can't say that kind of thing at all."

Still, Ben sounded like he had grudging respect for Auggie and for all the other team players they knew. Hell, he must respect them; he had thrown in his lot with Arthur, who was a soldier through and through in a way that no one of Auggie's generation could ever be.

"You and Auggie are different kinds of people. That doesn't mean you can't love him."

Was she really hearing that from Ben and not having _some_ kind of over-the-top reaction?

"It might mean that I can't give him what he wants, though," she said.

He stopped abruptly, his stance somehow pulling her to a standstill as well, even though they were not touching. She looked into his eyes and had the over-the-top reaction she had not had a minute earlier. Those eyes were still the color of swimming pools – still huge and magnificent enough to dive into. And he was _literally looking at her_ _– _something she was not supposed to miss, not supposed to care about, but there it was.

"I can't help you with that, Annie," he said quietly.

They stood facing each other for just a few moments before he turned and started walking back toward the parking lot. She watched him for a few seconds and then continued in the direction they'd been walking. Finishing an 8-mile hike was probably the best thing she could do in this frame of mind.

TBC


	4. A Brief Spell of Weakness

**Chapter 4: A Brief Spell of Weakness**

Saturday, January 18, 2014, 9 p.m.

She had planned on a hot shower, dinner at home alone, and an early bedtime after hiking all day in the cold, crisp air. But she couldn't even sit still on the couch for five minutes, much less lie down and asleep. Adrenaline overload. _Ben._ Years after she had stopped pining for him, she was still totally discombobulated every time she talked to him and still spent hours mulling over every word he said. Good thing he only showed up once every few years and was a man of so few words.

She called Auggie, hoping to have the kind of pointless, amusing, rambling conversation he was so good at, figuring it would leave them both tired and reassured. But he asked her to come to his place so that they could talk face to face. Maybe he was bouncing off his own walls. What was causing _his_ adrenaline overload?

No time to find out. As soon as she walked through the door, she lost all interest in talking and literally threw herself at him. They spent the next hour on the kind of crazy, up-against-the-wall sex that's half anxiety and half desire. Eventually, they sat slumped on the couch, side by side, with their legs entangled.

"I've been thinking about what you said," she told him.

"What I said when?," he asked. "Neither of us has said a word since you got here."

"Thursday. When you said that I'm too emotional for the job."

"I said `maybe,' Annie. If I recall correctly, I said it multiple times. I wasn't accusing you of anything, just suggesting that you try to see things from Joan's point of view."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not trying to re-run that argument. I'm trying to flip the script on you," she teased.

"I'm probably going to regret that I asked, but what the hell are you talking about?"

"Maybe _you're_ the one who's too emotional for this job. You were supposed to be working with Helen in the Czech Republic and just pretending to be her husband, but you fell in love with her. Major heartache for both you and her. Then you were supposed to be working Natasha as an asset, but you fell in love with her, too! You were so devastated about having to betray her that you ran all the way to Iraq. When Parker left you because she couldn't deal with your job, you went so crazy at Allen's that you wound up in jail and had to bribe your way back into Allen's with Orioles' tickets. You told me we should break up, because the job was preventing us from being a 'normal' couple, and then you told me that we made the wrong choice and you wanted to start up again, but then you were going to get back with Helen while I was pretending to be dead …"

Listening to an inventory of the women whom he'd loved and lost and suffered over in the course of doing his duty wasn't fun. At first, he stayed calm and almost brushed it off with a joke. ("I lost every one of them because of my job," he thought. "Maybe I should get a new job!") But he couldn't just sit there and take it when she reached the last item in her list.

"Oh for god's sake, Annie, I wasn't going to 'get back with Helen'," he said as he bolted off the couch and away from her.

His tone startled her. She'd been only half serious when she threw "you're the one who's too emotional for this job" at him, but "hurt" was the emotion he was expressing now, and it was entirely serious.

"I didn't mean …"

"You know, Annie, sometimes I wonder whether you ever really mean what you say." He sat on the barstool, not facing the couch but speaking loudly enough for her to hear every word. "Right from the beginning, you said you were taking on the whole Henry thing because you didn't want me to be collateral damage in Henry's war on Arthur. At some point, I think your exact words to me were 'I'm not out there on a limb for anyone but you.' But you didn't listen to a goddamned word I said during the whole mess."

"What? You were in my ear the whole time until I went dark."

"I don't mean you didn't let me be a handler and an all-around support system. I mean you didn't seem to care what I felt – what your maverick-superhero mission was doing to me personally. I told you on day one that Henry was going to wedge between us if you played the game on his terms – that we should find another way to deal with him. But you jetted off to Medellin anyway after telling me you wouldn't. That got me shot in the chest. I told you not to take the afternoon meet with Teo when we were down there, but you snuck off to it when I was in the bar with Calder – _again_, after telling me you wouldn't. That almost got _you_ shot. I told you to come back from Germany after that horrendous drive with Teo, but you insisted on going to Frankfurt."

He stood up and paced for a few seconds, sort of amazed that she was still sitting on the couch listening to all this.

"Your ignoring every `stand-down' instruction I gave you wasn't exactly new for us. But going dark after I begged you not to _was_ new. You left me completely alone. The only person at Langley who knew what you were doing was Calder, and he's not exactly someone I could open up to. I couldn't talk to Joan. I couldn't talk to Barber. Hell, I had to actively deceive them."

He was speaking softly now, losing steam as he relived the crushing strain he'd been under at the time. "Then Helen told me that she'd seen you in Geneva. There was finally one person in DC that I had a personal relationship with – granted a _weird _one – and didn't have to lie to. I took the bus to her place that night thinking we'd talk for a while, we'd have a few drinks, and then I'd go home. But there I was in a place that smelled familiar and felt safe after being so alone for so long. She kissed me, and I gave in."

He walked slowly to the couch and sat beside her, near but not touching. "It was a mistake, but that's all it was. I told her the next morning that I loved you and that she deserved a chance to find that same kind of real love with someone new." A few seconds of lip chewing, and then he turned right, making a good-faith effort to "face" her. "I wish I'd been stronger, Annie, but it was a brief spell of weakness, not a change of heart. I'm really sorry."

She moved left a few inches on the couch to close the gap between them and placed her palm on his cheek. "I'm sorry, too," she said. "I knew all along that what I was doing was hard on you, but I didn't know how hard until I saw you the day Helen was killed. You looked so exhausted. And skinny."

Thank god. The good times that they'd had since returning from Hong Kong, even with some tense times mixed in, had convinced him that his "mistake" with Helen wasn't a show stopper for Annie. Still, her willingness to hear his explanation and even to apologize was a huge relief.

She gently turned his face toward hers. "You still look exhausted and skinny," she whispered, molding her body into his as she spoke – expressing concern, not rejection.

He slumped against the back of the couch and sighed. "Sleeping, eating, and exercising weren't exactly top priorities while I was so worried about you – and, yeah, also pissed off at you. I've been hoping we could finally get to someplace more normal, now that that bastard is dead, but we still seem to be on an emotional roller coaster."

She swung her leg around him and squatted on his lap, facing him with her forearms on his shoulders. "Well, I envy you," she teased. "I wasn't sleeping soundly or working out either. But somehow I found the time to eat a lot of junk food and gain seven pounds during this ordeal. Don't tell me you didn't notice."

For the first time since they'd returned from Hong Kong, he smiled as he used to when their affair first started – before she let Henry Wilcox obliterate the rest of her life. "I noticed you're a little rounder and softer." He cupped her rounder, softer rear end in his hands and nuzzled his face between her rounder, softer breasts. Then he lifted her gracefully and walked toward the bedroom.

Enough talking for one day.

TBC


	5. To Have You Back in Charge

**Chapter 5: To Have You Back in Charge**

Sunday, January 19, 2014

After shopping for many hours, both online and off, Annie had finally settled on a spectacular mobile for little Mackenzie Campbell. She loved it as decorative art but wouldn't have chosen it if she hadn't felt intuitively that Auggie would love its mechanical properties. It had arrived gift-wrapped from a boutique e-tailer; so she hadn't been able to ask him to evaluate it manually. Maybe just as well – she didn't want to endure his silent, injured pride if her intuition that he'd love it was wrong.

She called the Campbell household late Sunday morning. Arthur said that Joan had just left to visit her sister but that he and Mac were home and would love to see Annie. She arrived just as they were finishing lunch.

No doubt Ben was right that Arthur wasn't planning to devote the rest of his life to housework and childcare, but he damned well would have excelled at both! Mac was the most alert, smiley, well dressed baby she'd ever seen (even better than Danielle's kids had been as babies), and Arthur served her the best cup of coffee she'd drunk since Geneva. Great coffee had been one of few bright spots in her life as Jessica Matthews.

They made about as much small talk, mostly about Mackenzie, as either of them could stand, and then Annie took the plunge. "Did Joan tell you that she reamed me out about taking on the Henry mission without reading her in?"

"Sure," Arthur said. Unflapped. No raised eyebrows. He and Joan really did have different management styles – not to mention radically different eyebrows.

"I don't know whether I can give her what she wants, Arthur. It's looking more and more like I'm a female version of Ben, not a female version of Auggie."

Now Arthur peered at her with full intensity _and_ raised eyebrows. "Annie, there's no evidence that you're a female version of Ben." Clearly he was speaking as someone with more knowledge than she had of what Ben had been up to over the past four years. "Ben became recklessly single-minded some time before you met him, and he's been escalating steadily. He's likely to die before he's 50 on what, in retrospect, will obviously have been a suicide mission. You pushed the envelope on Henry, I'll grant you, but I think you know the difference between brave and reckless."

He looked down at where Mackenzie lay sleeping next to him on the couch, giving her a chance to focus before he continued. "You're not a female version of Auggie, either. He's a remarkable person, Annie, as you well know. He's been through so much for someone his age." Talking about Auggie was harder for Arthur than talking about Ben.

"For many years, what didn't kill him made him stronger, but I'm not sure that's true any more," he said softly. "I'm sure about you, though, Annie. You're just starting to go through things, and you're still getting stronger."

Annie grinned from ear to ear, realizing that, for the first time in ages, she felt … how had Joan put it … "part of an organization." And how had Ben put it, in his description of Auggie's "soldier" thing? "He takes orders, he gives orders, …" Arthur had just given her an order to get a grip, be herself, and not try to emulate either of his male underlings with whom she'd had sex. He hadn't made her feel as though she was taking orders, of course. The man was good at this.

"You know, Arthur, I have a lot of respect for Joan," she said. "I think it's fantastic that the country finally has a female DCS. But it sure would be great to have you back in charge!"

They both laughed.

"Joan will be a stellar DCS," he said. "She's not going to run the division in the same way I did, much less as Henry did. But don't let her convince you that she's going to do everything strictly by the book. Every DCS does some off-book maneuvering at some point. Joan will get to that point. And she'll need people like you when she does."

They spent the next hour or so alternating between reliving the Henry Wilcox saga and kvelling over Mackenzie. They agreed that it would have been unbearable, had she brought Henry back alive, to live every day knowing that he wanted to kill them (and Joan and Mac), but still they felt unsatisfied by the way things had ended. With Henry dead, they would never hear from him exactly why he had turned from manipulating his former colleagues to murdering them or what, after all, had been his real goal.

###

Joan returned shortly after Annie left. Arthur greeted her at the door with Mackenzie in his arms, well rested and just awakening from an after-lunch nap. He told her about Annie's visit and showed her the beautiful mobile.

"So does she want to know as badly as we do?," Joan asked.

"Absolutely. I'd be shocked if she didn't make a move in the next day or two. Is Clara on board?"

Joan snorted. "Oh, come on, Arthur. When has Clara ever not been on board?"

"Good old Clara," Arthur said contentedly.

They sat on the living-room couch, and Joan took the baby. "She's not much older than you, Arthur. And I think you and she both have a lot of good years to come."

TBC


	6. The Game is Finally Afoot

**Chapter 6: The Game is Finally Afoot**

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Annie wasn't at her desk when Auggie stopped by to ask about dinner. The woman at the next desk told him that Annie had been in the gym for half an hour.

("Gym. Good idea," he thought, figuring it was about time to work off some of the Special Frustration he was experiencing trying to run a Special-Projects department at this point in CIA history. Upper management was so spooked [so to speak] by the death of Henry and the undeath of Annie that it was hard to get authorization for a normal project, never mind a Special one.)

"I'm Auggie Anderson," he said, facing in the general direction of the voice, wondering what the woman looked like.

"Clara Weinberg," the woman said. Her firm handshake came in at an angle that reassured him he'd gotten the direction more or less right.

"Clara! Annie told me that she's really enjoying working with you on the Ukrainian review. I think you're the first person in the company she's worked with who speaks Russian as well as she does."

"Yeah, they had to get me out mothballs," Clara said. "I was rotting away in Annex C with all of the other Cold War relics. I can't afford to take any of the pathetic retirement packages they've offered, because my husband's job disappeared in the Great Recession. But my language skills and cultural knowledge haven't been in high demand around here for a while. I was a nice, Jewish girl from Long Island back when I was recruited, but I can't even read Hebrew any more, much less Arabic."

"Well, Snowden's in Russia. Joan told Annie that Ukraine is about to blow. Maybe Cold War II is an idea whose time has come."

"A girl can dream," she said as he walked toward the door. "Nice to meet you, Auggie."

"Likewise," he said as he went through it and headed toward the elevator.

###

No one said hi to him when he entered to the gym. The only sound he heard was that of one person running fast on a treadmill, but still he said "Annie?" pretty softly, not wanting to disturb anyone else who might be in the room, concentrating hard on a workout. No response. She might be wearing headphones. Hoping that she was the one pounding away on the treadmill, rather than silently lifting weights or already in the shower, he walked over to it, felt for the handrail, and made his way around to the front where the runner could see him.

"Hey," she said – loudly, in order to be heard over the pounding of her feet on the tread; they must indeed be the only two people in the room. She'd pulled off the headphones but hadn't broken her stride.

"Hey. I stopped by your desk to ask whether you're coming over for dinner, but Clara said you were down here."

"Dinner sounds good. What did you think of Clara?"

"I liked her," he said. "She told me a hefty chunk of her life story. I guess people start craving conversation when they've been in mothballs for 20-plus years. What time should I expect you tonight?"

"How about you come to my place?," she said. "I've got a freezer full of Lean Cuisine and refrigerator full of Diet Coke."

"Oh boy. Sounds yummy."

"Don't worry," she said laughingly. "We can order up some pizza and beer for you. I just figured it's time for me to get back to my pre-Geneva self. Physically anyway."

"OK. I promise to take home all of the leftover pizza. Unless I eat it for breakfast. See you around seven?"

"Yeah," she said. "Seven. Bye." She put her headphones back on.

Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke – so much for rounder and softer. That's ok. Rounder and softer Annie, …, leaner and stronger Annie, …, just about any kind of Annie would be fine with him. Physically anyway.

###

Annie went to Joan's office after showering and dressing. She didn't have an appointment and knew that it was unlikely that Joan would be free to talk to her, but she'd been chomping at the bit since talking to Arthur and wasn't going to be able to wait much longer. If she acted without consulting Joan, she'd be in for at least another lecture and maybe something worse.

Fortunately, Joan was in the office and actually seemed happy for the interruption. ("Maybe the DCS has worse things to deal with than my lone-wolf tendencies," Annie thought. "Good to know.") Annie sat across the desk from Joan and got right to the point.

"Joan, I want to find out who really killed Jai and why."

Joan did her damned eyebrow thing, leaving Annie to wonder whether she was impressed and intrigued or had been expecting that for a while. Probably the latter, which meant she was now waiting to hear what else Annie had to say. No doubt Joan wanted to know whether they were on the same page or one of them was already a few moves ahead.

"Arthur's official investigation ended right after we finally got some evidence of what Jai was up to and why someone might want to kill him," Annie continued.

Joan leaned back in her chair. "Go on," she said.

"Think about what happened, step by step. Weeks after Jai was killed, we found a clue at his safe house: He was collating the files from all of his blown missions, hoping to figure out who had an interest in tanking all of them. The picture of Simon was in one of those files. We decided that I should try to bring Simon in, but I failed. Then, to make a long story short, Lena killed Simon, and I killed Lena. At that point, I figured `case closed' on Jai. Lena had been a double for years, and Simon was part of her network. She must have been the one sabotaging Jai's ops, and she or someone working for her must have killed Jai when she discovered that he was investigating and was on to Simon."

Joan leaned forward, putting her elbow on the desk and her chin on her fist. She directed rapt attention to Annie and said "Sounds like a reasonable explanation. Why do you think it's wrong?"

"I'm not sure it's _wrong_, exactly, but it's incomplete," Annie answered. "It doesn't explain all of the facts. Mostly it doesn't explain what happened next."

"Henry," Joan said.

"Yes," Annie continued, now pacing around the office as she told the rest of the story. "If everything connected with Jai had actually ended when I killed Lena, there'd be no reason to doubt that theory of his death. But things didn't end there.

"Before long, Henry was released from prison. Why was he released at that time? Did the deal that he cut have anything to do with Lena's operation? Was he unable to reveal something valuable while Lena was still alive to take revenge? But the really big question is 'why did Henry blame Arthur for Jai's death?' Henry was a vicious bastard, but we all know that he wasn't stupid. He knew that Arthur isn't the kind of person who would want to see Jai dead, in spite of whatever professional differences Arthur had with Jai or with him."

Joan leaned back again. Now she was smiling broadly, leaving Annie no doubt that she'd had the same thoughts and was happy finally to be discussing them. She stood, walked to the window, and picked up the narrative as Annie sat back down on the other side of the desk.

"No, Henry certainly wasn't stupid, but he seems to have been deranged at the end," Joan said. "I never believed that he really blamed Arthur for Jai's death. I was never even sure that Henry truly mourned Jai; he'd been such a lousy father. But Henry did have an axe to grind with Arthur – many axes. He'd been a mentor and an ally of Arthur's early on. He felt betrayed when Arthur refused to go along on the journey to the dark side that he took as DCS. He must have been crazy with jealousy when he was forced to retire early and Arthur got the job.

"If he were still the old Henry, though, he wouldn't have gone on a murderous rampage in order to get back at Arthur. He'd have used his political connections and his remaining friends at Langley to sabotage Arthur's career and mine. Lexington Global would have been a perfect staging ground for his dirty tricks. What made him freak out? And why did he keep telling Arthur that he was just after revenge for Jai when it was so obvious he was after more than that?"

"I want to find the answers – all of them," Annie said. She waited for Joan to sit down and face her across the desk. She felt surprisingly calm now and knew that she'd made the right decision to tell Joan what she wanted to do. Joan's reprimand the week before had not been for taking initiative, only for taking it without the blessing of anyone in authority – in other words, without _her_ blessing. Well, now Annie was doing it Joan's way; if no blessing was forthcoming, maybe she really was in the wrong job.

Joan sat across from Annie, keeping her back ramrod straight and her face inscrutable. "Ok," she said quietly. "It will have to be an off-book op. For now, just you working alone and reporting to me. Until we know what, if anything, you're likely to find, I don't want you even to read in Auggie."

"Fine," Annie said. "We all know at this point that I can work without Auggie. He's got his own ops to deal with in Special Projects, anyway."

She hadn't consciously thought about whether she wanted to involve Auggie, but, as soon as Joan said not to, she knew Joan was right. "Ill advised" is what the old Auggie would have told her calmly. At this point in their relationship, he might just scream "Are you out of your goddamned mind, Annie?" as soon as she even hinted that she wasn't finished with the Wilcoxes, father and son. Joan would have to find someone else if they needed tech expertise.

"Well," Joan said as she stood up and put her coat on, "I'm pleased that you came to me with this idea rather than just forging ahead on your own. Think about where you want to start, and we'll talk again in a day or two. Right now, I have to get home to Mac and Arthur."

Annie put her own coat on and headed for the door. "Thanks, Joan."

"Don't forget that you'll have to continue your work on the Ukrainian review. This Jai and Henry stuff is off-book and can't take up all of your time."

"Of course. I can work on more than one thing at a time," Annie said. "Have a good night, and give my regards to your guys."

Joan sat back down and dialed the phone a few seconds after Annie shut the door. "Clara," she said. "Annie just left. She wants to … how did she put it … `find out who really killed Jai and why.' Is everything ready on your end?"

"Oh, come on, Joanie" Clara snorted. "Everything was ready on my end before Annie and I started the Ukrainian review. I'm monitoring every keystroke, every mouse click, every file, every phone call – so far, she hasn't done anything you'd want to hear about. Good to know that the game is finally afoot."

"Ok, keep me posted," Joan said. "And Clara, it's great to be working with you again."

"Any time, Joanie. Good night."

THE END

**A/N: ** As some of you have probably guessed, I was immensely frustrated by Season 4. I didn't believe that a conniving, venal bureaucrat like Henry would suddenly become a deluded mass murderer. I felt cheated when both Teo and Helen were killed off as soon as they started to get interesting. I thought Annie behaved totally irresponsibly, even by the standards of a lovable maverick. For months after the season ended last November, the characters kept talking to each other in my head, trying to tie up loose ends and make sense out of all of the inconsistency and unanswered questions. I finally decided that I had to get all of that dialogue out of my head before Season 5 begins. The result was "Heart to Hearts Require Talking."

I'm still deciding whether I want to write more C.A. fanfiction and, in particular, whether I want to develop my O.C. Clara Weinberg. If you have an opinion on the subject, please either private-message me or post a review of "Heart to Hearts Require Talking."


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